Class of ’13

Four days later, I’m still in disbelief that the Stars managed to draft Valeri Nichushkin at 10th overall. I really, really thought that the Devils were going to mess it all up for us:

And then that crazy Schneider trade went down, and it looked like it would be the Canucks who were going to ruin things for us. That’s just SO Vancouver, isn’t it?

But they didn’t. And somehow, one of the most talented players in the draft fell into our laps. I still can’t believe it.

In Nichushkin, the Stars get an elite power forward who is NHL-ready. Forget the whole “I don’t want to play in the AHL thing,” too. It doesn’t make sense for Nichu (who played against grown men in the KHL, the second-best league in the world) to go to a minor league. That’s regression. The logical next step is the NHL, and a lot of scouts think he’s ready for that. I’m stupidly excited to see him play for the Stars.

With Boston’s first-rounder (hey thanks, Toronto!) we picked up Jason Dickinson, a player with tremendous upside. This was a bit of a risky pick, but if it works out Jim Nill is going to look like a genius.

Another pick I’m fairly excited about is one of our fifth-rounders, Cole Ully:

Fifth rounders tend to work out for us, wouldn’t you say?

It was super exciting to see Jim Nill’s first draft and even better to see how lucky we got.